I’ve previously discussed patent maintenance fees in another blog post. Some of my clients choose to pay maintenance fees on their own. After all, it’s not difficult; all one needs to do is know their patent number and navigate the USPTO website to the Maintenance Fees Storefront.
Starting now, however, it’s slightly more burdensome to pay patent maintenance fees. The USPTO announced that a USPTO.gov account is required to pay these fees, which was not previously the case. While it is fairly simple to create a USPTO.gov account, it’s just one more step that must be done to keep a patent alive.
That being said, a good number of my clients have hired me to pay their patent maintenance fees (even before the new requirement) because they want to make sure it gets done correctly, which I am happy to do.